Fossil fuels are a finite, non-renewable resource formed from decayed plants and animals that have been converted to crude oil, coal, natural gas, or heavy oils by exposure to heat and pressure in the earth's crust over hundreds of millions of years. However, as the world's petroleum resources are depleting coupled with its ever-increasing prices, many industries worldwide have been looking into renewable/sustainable raw materials (“bio-resources”) to replace petroleum-based materials in their manufacturing processes.
Industrial oleochemicals are useful in the production of surfactants, lubricants, fuels, plastics, and the like. Oleochemicals include, but are not limited to, fatty alcohols, esters and paraffins. Providing efficient processes for directly converting renewable materials into such products would be highly desirable.
A prior art approach to convert bio-resources such as lipids (e.g., vegetable oil, animal fat, etc.) to high value products such as jet/diesel fuels (paraffins) is via alkali catalyzed reaction in the presence of an alcohol, generating esters such as long chain alkyl esters or fatty acid methyl ester (FAME). Hydroprocessing is another approach to covert bio-resources to useful products. However, in US Patent Publication No. 2009/0166256, it is disclosed that with biocomponent feedstocks, e.g., vegetable oils and animal fats which typically contain triglycerides and fatty acids, the large triglyceride and fatty acid molecules in biocomponent feedstocks may competitively adsorb on and block active sites of hydrotreating catalysts. There is a need for catalysts having the appropriate morphology, structure, and optimum catalytic activity for high yield conversion of renewable feedstock into high value products.
Base oils are commonly used for the production of process oils, white oils, metal working oils, and lubricants for use in automotives, industrial applications, and the like. It is increasingly difficult to produce lubricants from conventional mineral oils to meet certain standards in the automotive industry. There is a need for an improved process to make lubricants and bright stocks with renewable feedstock as the originating source.